Dmitry Medvedev urged to run for re-election as manifesto prepared

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has been publicly urged by his advisers to run for president again on platform of democracy and modernisation in a new report that is likely to anger supporters of Vladimir Putin, the prime minister.

A Moscow think tank, set up by Mr Medvedev when he assumed the presidency in 2008, produced what it said it hoped might become his election manifesto for next year's presidential poll.

Urging him to push democratic and modernising reforms, it said Russia faced a bleak future if Mr Medvedev stepped down and handed the formal reins of power over to someone else.

"One year on from now we will not only be choosing between programmes and personalities," it said. "But also between the start of changes and the end of hopes, between a future and new hard times." Russia would revert to "deepening stagnation" and "social and political anarchy" without Mr Medvedev, it added.

Neither Mr Medvedev nor Mr Putin has yet revealed whether they will contest the 2012 presidential election. Both men have vowed not to run against one another however and to discuss which one of them will contest the election beforehand.

As prime minister, Mr Putin has retained most of his influence and is widely perceived to be the country's most powerful politician. But the two-horse race for the presidency appears to remain open, at least in theory, and supporters of Mr Medvedev have made a series of public statements in recent months that look designed to prod him into running for a second term.

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A senior member of Mr Putin's ruling United Russia party on Wednesday dismissed the new report extolling Mr Medvedev as "a provocation," while Mr Putin's spokesman said it was too early to talk about the election.